President Donald Trump commuted the sentence of former Democratic Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, the New York Times reported Tuesday. He also gave full pardons to Ed DeBartolo and the former NYPD commissioner Bernie Kerik, an ally of Rudy Giuliani’s.
Trump suggested last year that he would commute the 14-year sentence he saw as excessive compared to others who did the same thing [like Jesse Jackson’s son]. At the time, Blagojevich was sentenced, the media had a vicious campaign against him.
It also appeared that he was targeted by hyper-aggressive federal prosecutors [Comey, Fitzpatrick, under FBI Director Mueller] because of his disruptive political style and because he took on the Democratic establishment, and not because the state was concerned about any corruption.
Blagojevich was extremely annoying and a loud-mouth. That didn’t help his case. The trite NY Times thinks he was pardoned because he was on Trump’s reality show, ‘Celebrity Apprentice.’ They have zero evidence for that, but they have become very conspiratorial and gossipy.
Blagojevich tried to sell the Senate seat of then-president-elect Barack Obama in 2008, according to NBC Chicago.
Clemency will not expunge Blagojevich’s conviction, but he will get out of jail immediately. He has served seven years.
EDDIE DEBARTOLO
The news came hours after Trump granted a full pardon to former San Francisco 49ers owner Eddie DeBartolo.
NFL greats cheered the DeBartolo pardon.
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DeBartolo allegedly failed to report a bribe to the former governor of Louisiana when he pleaded guilty in 1998.
NFL greats including Jerry Rice, Ronnie Lott, Charles Haley, and Jim Brown were on hand at the White House, expressing their support for DeBartolo, who was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2016.
“I take my hat off to Donald Trump for what he did,” Rice said, crediting DeBartolo for his former team’s success in the 1980s and 90s.
“He wanted us to win, and I think he’s the main reason why we won so many Super Bowls,” said Rice, who played on three of DeBartolo’s Super Bowl-winning teams.
“I’m going to make it real simple,” Brown said. “Ed DeBartolo is a great man.”
Brown spoke of his relationship with DeBartolo, calling him “a great, great friend of mine and to the league.”
DeBartolo’s guilty plea was in connection to his payment of $400,000 to former Louisiana Gov. Edwin Edwards in exchange for a riverboat gambling license. He avoided prison, was fined $1 million and was suspended for a year by the NFL. But the episode effectively ended his NFL career.
The 49ers won five championships under DeBartolo before he resigned on word he faced charges.
BERNIE KERIK
The President will grant a pardon to Bernie Kerik.
Kerik, who oversaw the NYPD during the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, pleaded guilty in 2009 to charges of felony tax fraud and lying to the government. He was released from federal prison in 2013.
“I think it’s long overdue,” Kerik’s lawyer Timothy Parlatore told CNBC after he heard the news of Trump’s plan to pardon Kerik.
“It’s something that I’ve been fighting for several years,” Parlatore said.
MICHAEL MILKEN
Milken was indicted for racketeering and securities fraud in the late 1980s.
Trump also announces that he pardoned Bernard Kerik and Michael Milken. Kerik pleaded guilty to tax fraud and other federal charges. Milken was indicted for racketeering and securities fraud in the late 1980s. pic.twitter.com/gxhSNNKCRq
— Oliver Willis (@owillis) February 18, 2020
It takes courage for the President to do this. It’s selfless because he will be hammered for it.
Trump also commuted the sentences of three women, two convicted on drug charges and one on charges of defrauding the federal government through her healthcare company.
“The pardoning of these disgraced figures should be treated as another national scandal by a lawless executive,” said Democratic Representative Bill Pascrell, a critic of Trump’s pardons.
Pascrell is the same person who thinks it’s fine to have sanctuaries for criminals and to release criminals onto our streets.
